Re: Question on Chaitin


"Timothy Murphy" <tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pt0ie.53311$Z14.44333@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> tchow@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>> Whatever shortcomings Torkel Franzen may have, inability to understand
>> the consequences of Goedel's theorems is not one of them. Read his book
>> "Inexhaustibility" and then judge whether it is his mathematical ability
>> or yours that is greater.
>
> I haven't read this book - I didn't know it existed -
> but I would certainly not claim Franzen lacked mathematical ability.
>
> I thought some of his original criticisms of Chaitin's writings were
> cogent.
> But now he has got into a mode where his main concern seems to be
> to prove Chaitin wrong, rather than work out what he (Chaitin) means.
>

You certainly are an arrogant irritating twit! Torkel already has
proven Chaitin made a grevious error. Torkel did state that Chaitin
corrected the error later.

http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS/chaitin/georgia.html
"Gödel's original proof constructed a paradoxical assertion that is true but
not provable within the usual formalizations of number theory. In contrast I
would like to measure the power of a set of axioms and rules of inference.
I would like to be able to say that if one has ten pounds of axioms and a
twenty-pound theorem, then that theorem cannot be derived from those axioms.
And I will argue that this approach to Gödel's theorem does suggest a
change in the daily habits of mathematicians, and that Gödel's theorem
cannot be shrugged away."

SH: This is not an abstract. This is a stand-alone paragraph. It is quite
blunt. There is no interpretation. It is simply wrong and especially so
because it is written for a lay audience not qualified to substitute a
correct "interpretation" which is quite opposite of what is written.

Timothy Murphy wrote:

"This is a disease that can attack gifted mathematicians.
I had a supervisor (L.J. Mordell) who took this attitude to Serge Lang,
because the latter had criticised one of Mordell's heroes (Bachmann, IIRC).
Mordell spent days poring over Lang's works,
looking for what he took to be errors."

SH: I don't know if you are a gifted mathematician but you have
the disease. Along with the sniveling moral cowardice of trying
to pretend that the topic is about whether Chaitin's BLUNDER
can be corrected in a pitiful attempt of face-saving.

You've made two mistakes. First contending that Chaitin's fiasco
was something to be re-interpreted and second to misinterpret
Torkel's and twist into your objectionable nonsense.

Timothy Murphy wrote:
When Chaitin speaks of the "informational content" of a theorem
he is using the term in a very special sense,
as is clear from his formal Theorems.
One could argue that his use of the term is misleading,
but not in my view that he has made a mistake.

SH: "misleading" ?? Yer the stinkin yellow-bellied, equivocating
sophist nincompoop. Grow up and come to grips with reality.
I'm surprised Franzen showed you so much undeserved civility.





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